


Divenire

by Issay



Series: Stories Untold [2]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015), Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Rare Pairings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-13
Updated: 2015-03-13
Packaged: 2018-03-17 17:49:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3538541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Issay/pseuds/Issay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How many people can you love when you're immortal?<br/>The answer is: too many. And at the same time: never enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Divenire

**Author's Note:**

> [Erica_Zora](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Erica_Zora/profile) asked for a sequel to [The Pilgrim](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3514352). And I love writing for people ;)

How long does it take to fall in love? A blink of an eye? A heartbeat? And how long does it last – how many people can you love during your entire life?  
How many people can you love when you're immortal?  
The answer is: too many. And at the same time: never enough.

*

Jack thinks that the world should have ended when Ianto died. Just like that, in that one split of a second, the whole Earth with its politicians and spies and aliens should all go to hell. Literally. And leave only a cloud of dust. No pain, no memories, no familiar places. Only dust floating in the space.  
But the world somehow went on. And even without Ianto – with that bleeding hole in Jack's heart instead, a Ianto-shaped hole – there were children to be saved and aliens to be destroyed. If Jack learned anything during his time in Torchwood it was that personal grief always comes second. You are not important. You are only a tool, a pair of hands holding a weapon. You do not matter. So you clench your teeth and maybe you'll bleed all over the floor, or face death alone and scared, but you finish your mission first. And that's what he does. He murders an innocent child in the name of the greater good and it still doesn't kill him. It's so unfair. So unfair.  
But the life goes on again and he can't stand it, he leaves and then he comes back because he'll never leave Earth, not really. It will haunt and torture him for as long as it takes for him to catch the first ship heading towards the Solar system. It doesn't matter how many others he'll fuck and for how many moondays he'll drink until unconscious, until there is no dead Ianto underneath his eyelids. He always finds his way back home. This time he's not himself anymore, he's not Jack Harkness. He doesn't recognize the face he sees in the mirror.  
It will pass.  
The first day after he's back he walks the painfully familiar streets of Cardiff and sees Ianto everywhere. In his favorite coffee shop, or a tailor's atelier. It hurts. But Jack prefers it because this way he can see Ianto once again, not pale and dying but laughing and alive, God, how alive.  
Sometimes Jack thinks that he should have retconned that kid who asked him for a job and maybe Ianto would still be alive somewhere.  
Maybe there is a dimension where he does.

*

But then people stop dying and there is another crisis to be solved, a world to be saved and Jack can't help but wonder how does the Doctor stand it. The weight of the world on his shoulders, the responsibility. Jack Harkness can't stand the look in Gwen's eyes, the broken and disillusioned one.  
Maybe that's the biggest difference between Jack and the Doctor.

*

Ovens, humanity is burning people in ovens and Jack doesn't have any strength left in him to feel surprised.

*

After all is said and done he leaves again. Sure, there is still that small thing of another immortal walking the Earth but Jack will deal with that another time. Somewhere in eternity since both he and Rex have nothing but time now.  
He goes back to Cardiff but the streets don't look familiar anymore and there is no Ianto everywhere he turns. The city is just as gray and bleak as it used to be before Jack met his beautiful boy in a tailored suit.

*

Sometimes he wonders if he had chosen Kingsman because of their suits. Not because as a rule they don't deal with alien, extraterrestrial crap or because their level of discretion is almost Torchwood-like. No, maybe it's because their agents are pretty people in perfect suits and that feels familiar, comforting. This way Jack can think that maybe Ianto would feel at home there.  
Jack knows that the ghost of Ianto Jones will always follow him because he loved that smart boy the way he didn't love many people. And maybe it's been four years since that horrible, horrible day when he touched Ianto's pale skin for the last time but it doesn't really matter. Jack is eternal. He will always carry the taste of Ianto's kisses and the knowledge how he liked his coffee in the morning.  
Gwen gave him a few pictures from her home archive. One – her and Jack, Myfanwy somewhere in the distance. Second – the whole Torchwood Three, not long after Gwen's third case.  
The last one is of him and Ianto standing side by side, talking about something and touching slightly, Ianto has that soft smile reserved only for Jack.  
Jack was wrong. He still can cry.

*

During his recruitment talk with Merlin Jack shoots himself in the head and then comes back to life.  
"I need a drink," says the bald technician weakly and takes Jack out to a small pub near the atelier, where apparently he's one of the usual patrons because the barman recognizes him and doesn't raise an eyebrow when Merlin demands scotch. After all, it's little after two o'clock.  
"How?" asks the Kingsman agent after he had a glass and Jack finds himself telling that strange man everything. The century he was born in and the TARDIS, he tells him a story about the Doctor and his Bad Wolf, about death and how eternity has become the most terrifying word. He speaks of the time in Time Agency and then in Torchwood, about the people he's lost, things he has seen. He speaks of Ianto Jones and 456 and people burning in industrial-sized ovens without a word of protest.  
"I'm so sorry," says Merlin after Jack has no more words and no more tears to cry. And he is, he's truly and genuinely sorry for the man out of time.  
Day after that Jack Harkness becomes Excalibur.

*  
It's soothing, the familiar sound of voices in the air and people that are smiling at him when he passes them by. There are things to be done, cleanup mostly – Jack spend a lot of time cleaning up his own messes, it's actually nice to share his experience with the others. If Nimue and Dindrane, agents who usually work with him, have some questions about his past, they keep them to themselves. It's better this way. They all have their stories and things they are running away from, Jack supposes. They don't need his fears and loneliness.  
Jack happily takes one mission after another and for some time it's enough.  
So he forges documents and leads the knights through borders into countries they shouldn't enter, he patches them up and pats their arms when it's needed. Mostly the knights prefer to be left alone, bleeding into their perfectly fitted suits, blood seeping through wool and cotton. Sometimes mixing with tears. Jack politely acts like he doesn't see it and if sometimes those bleeding, broken warriors have the face of Ianto Jones and everything in him wants to make it better, he keeps himself in check.  
"You're grieving, aren't you?" asks Galahad one time, not long before Lancelot dies and the whole recruitment mess starts. Jack likes him, the man is smart and always thanks him for the service. People working in Torchwood never got any thanks, only coffins. It's a step up.  
"Eternally," he answers with a sad smile. 

*

Sometimes he thinks that Kingsman isn't really a change, that he's still working for Torchwood and he panics. And then a dog barks somewhere deep in the headquaters underground complex.  
There were no dogs in Torchwood.  
He stays.

*

It's a simple mission, get in touch with the French embassy in Moscow and hand the package to the guard. Too simple to send in one of the knights so the man that used to be Galahad and now sits on Arthur's throne sends Jack. And it is, indeed, banally easy, no problems at all, done in a few minutes. At least until he sees a familiar blue box on the very edge of the Red Square. It's snowing. Jack goes through the snow and wind and his own silent prayers to gods whose names he had long forgotten.  
He knocks.  
"I'm not taking you back," says the Doctor when he opens the door, now with an unfamiliar, old-looking face. Over his shoulder a young and pretty companion smiles at Jack, as if she knew who he was.  
"Don't be rude," she scolds the Time Lord. "Some hot tea, Captain? You look miserable."  
"That would be lovely, miss," he answers, because what else can he do? The Doctor gingerly moves and lets him in.  
The TARDIS looks differently, completely not like the last time he was in the ship. True, it was an era ago. Feels like an eternity has passed since that day, when he and a bunch of other people whose lives have been altered by the traveling Time Lord saved the world. That day, when he came back home, Gwen and Ianto were waiting for him. Gwen, now a mother, happily married and running Torchwood Five out of the Welsh coast. Ianto, lost in the darkness.  
"Could you? Take me back, I mean, like you did for Galahad and Arthur?" asks Jack, unsure which "back" he really means. The girl – Clara, he learns – pushes a warm mug into his hands.  
"I can't, Jack," the Doctor sighs looking at him with pity, it looks so unnatural, this helplessness on the face that doesn't seem familiar to Jack, like this man isn't the same one he had met before. "His death is a fixed point. I'm sorry."  
"That's all I needed to know," he politely takes a sip of the tea – doesn't feel any taste – puts the mug on the console and ties his scarf. And then he turns to the door. "Thanks for the tea, Clara."  
He leaves.

*

"You're awfully silent since you came back from Moscow," notices Merlin one night. It's late and the offices are empty but Merlin and Excalibur have no other lives outside their work for the agency. Paperwork and a glass of good alcohol became their own private tradition and Jack was quite surprised when Roxy asked him one time if Merlin was his friend. He supposes that's the truth.  
"I've met the Doctor again," he answers, reaching for his glass of scotch and notices Merlin's slightly alarmed look. "No, this is not a goodbye, Merlin."  
"What is it then?"  
The alcohol is burning in Jack's throat and for a moment he can pretend that it's not tears.  
"Ianto's death, unlike Harry's, is a fixed point. It means that even if I go back in time, and even if I get that damned gas mask on his face, he would still die. Somehow. Hit by a car, or shot by accident. Got cancer. Struck by a lightning. Fixed point in time and space, just like me...just like me..."  
The silence is long and heavy.  
"What do you need?" Merlin's voice is quiet and compassionate. Jack looks at the head technician, dressed in casual black pants and a dress shirt, his cardigan and tie lost somewhere, first button of the shirt undone. They sit face to face in comfy chairs, paperwork and tablets cluttering a low coffee table. Slowly and without his usual energy, carefully, Jack gets up and takes those three steps that separate him from Merlin. There, directly in front of the man, he sinks to his knees.  
"Will you give me this?" Jack asks in breathless whisper, his hands land on Merlin's thighs, he feels the wizard tremble before nodding.

*

Ianto's grave doesn't look different than thousands of others. Maybe only the soft outline of Torchwood's sigil in the right corner of the stone distinguishes it. And yet for Jack it's the most important grave in the whole universe.  
When he reaches to touch the headstone, it's warm under the palm of his hand.  
"I hope..." he starts, wind takes his words and carries them away. "I hope you're happy, wherever you are. I hope I'll get to see you again. I hope..."  
It's been six years since Ianto's death.

*

He doesn't love Merlin. But he sleeps next to him and brews his morning tea (strong, with tea and one spoon of cane sugar) and knows how he tastes like on his tongue, how he's voice sounds like when he's broken and begging and out of control. Jack knows his scent and sometimes hides his face in Merlin's soft cardigan just because he can. But he doesn't love him.  
Yet.  
He's still not the same Jack Harkness who ran Torchwood Three. He's not the same man Ianto loved.  
He knows it.

Somehow it's okay.

**Author's Note:**

> If you have an idea for another part of the series - leave your prompt in the comment section :)
> 
> [Find me on tumblr!](http://issayscorner.tumblr.com/)


End file.
